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Nvidia Adds Telemetry To Latest Drivers (ghacks.net)
An anonymous reader shares a report on Ghack: Telemetry -- read tracking -- seems to be everywhere these days. Microsoft pushes it on Windows, and web and software companies use it as well. While there is certainly some benefit to it on a larger scale, as it may enable these companies to identify broader issues, it is undesirable from a user perspective. Part of that comes from the fact that companies fail to disclose what is being collected and how data is stored and handled once it leaves the user system. In the case of Nvidia, Telemetry gets installed alongside the driver package. While you may customize the installation of the Nvidia driver so that only the bits that you require are installed, there is no option to disable the Telemetry components from being installed. These do get installed even if you only install the graphics driver itself in the custom installation dialog.Further reading on MajorGeeks.
For entertainment value, here's the Nvidia driver download page from 2001, with the driver weighing in at 6Mb.
Compare with 15 years later, driver is now 300Mb....
Software bloat at it's finest.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
I am 100% certain that they would only be able to collect only crash data from EU citizen, as anything else, including usage or even something as simple as the percentage of pink pixel would break privacy laws and the right of correction.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Or will the driver not function without it?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
See subject: This is task scheduler driven in windows so cut out these entries there & poof/voila, it's gone:
NVidia Telemetry monitor
NVidia Crash and Telemetry reporter (2 of these are present)
(Each is GUID/SID marshalled (OLE type))
* Each time you update your drivers using the std. installer, this will PROBABLY have to be done (this is also the case w/ .exe's they used under %Program Files% in 64-bit & %Program Files (x86)% in 32-bit as well for nvtray.exe (if you don't like it, OR, NVBackend (can be disabled in tools like MSConfig start up area OR autoruns (far more comprehensive)).
(Personally on that LAST group, I go into the program files area & rename .exe files involved for 'geforce experience' IF you don't use it (I don't) along w/ DLL's those .exe files call functions from, but you have to be careful if you run STEAM games (bullshit imo, I like local diskbound games) there...)
Lastly - on updating a driver?
You don't REALLY need to use their std. installer - just extract it (goes beneath a NIVDIA folder & driver folder is what you use) & go to device manager & use it's properties page to update the driver (iirc, this doesn't install ALL NEW files, only strictly .sys driver related ones - feel free to correct me IF I am off here). This worked FINE for me going from build 375.63 to 375.70 current driver build.
Of course, you can also monitor what servers these things talk to w/ say, NirSofer's Network Latency View (or his other network tools) & block it by hostname (if it's done that way) OR ip address in firewalls too.
APK
P.S.=> In the end, this invasive spying is really, Really, REALLY getting "outta control" imo (well, not out of MY control or yours @ this point per the above)... apk
Security is a bitch and we can't secure anything if we don't have complete control over the complete set of source code needed for each and every component including keyboard controllers, LCD controllers, graphics chips, wifi chips, and so on need to be released in full and not just an 'open source' wrapper around some proprietary firmware either (I'm looking at you AMD).
It's why I'm hostile to Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba, Apple, and Sony (computers) as these companies implement digital restrictions in proprietary components (BIOS). It's why I'm hostile to Intel (CPUs backdoor'd), NVidia, AMD (not just graphics but also backdoor'd) for keeping everything proprietary and compromising my system's security. It's why I don't have an NVIDIA or AMD graphics card.
It's why I put my money into funding EOMA68 project (ThinkPenguin's the main sponsor and a crowd funding campaign was done here: https://crowdsupply.com/eoma68)- a modular computing standard which aims to open up hardware in the free software sense (even though they are also opening up schematics for boards it's the sources are what matter for individual components the most and modularizing ensures it's cheaper and easier to pressure component manufacturers to release code- whereas currently we have Intel or AMD for laptops for example EOMA68 is opening the way for non-x86 laptops with CPUs from other companies).
You suddenly find £2,000 gone from your bank account and the bank blames you (as not in this Tesco case). You audit; you are up to date with all virus bashing software, etc, ... how else could your data have gone ? You then find that 'telemetry' is being sucked from your machine, Nvidia/Microsoft/... refuse to disclose what they have taken from your machine; they will not say how they protect what they have taken or who they share it with. Can you go after them ?
It happily loaded the telemetry crap on my system with Experience not installed. As the article (and even TFS) say.
Until all competing products do the same thing. Then all you're left with is complaints. And make no mistake, if this is determined to be a success (or at least not a big disaster) then its almost certain the rest of the industry will follow suit, sooner or later.
nVidia is risking pissing us all off by this move while their competitors aren't, but AMD would be risking essentially nothing if they do the same thing in a couple months since there's not really any other options for people to move to. Intel's a very distant third place and not really attempting to compete at the cutting edge. Whoever is below Intel isn't even worth discussing at this point.
A low-competition market doesn't have to be an actual oligopoly to screw over their customers. Sometimes it just takes one producer to risk pulling the trigger on something only-kind-of-bad and everyone just follows along if the action shows overall benefit to the bottom line. This scenario might not get away with actions as bad as a true oligopoly but it can still fall well into the "not good" category.